HR Trends Part 2- Global HR Trends to watch out for
In Part 1 of our HR Trends Series, we looked at the trends influencing hiring this year. Particularly new interviewing tools, big data, diversity & inclusion, and artificial intelligence as reported by Linkedin.
Hiring great people is the most crucial function of HR because your company is only as good as its people. However hiring strategically involves looking at the bigger trends shaping the future of work and positioning the HR department, workforce, and in large leadership and the organization to capitalize on these trends to attract and retain the best talent.
Global leaders agree that attracting and retaining top talent remains #1 top concern for them. Bigger than even political instability. https://zurl.co/4xRjd
In this part, we delve deeper into overall HR trends for 2018 and we will see how hiring fits into that.
A look into the 15 HR trends to watch out for in 2018 reveals a similar perspective as shown by Deloitte in 2017 below. So let’s use our 3Ps again to summarise the two reports.
1. People
Millennials and Gen Z are already shaping up the new world of work. This is forcing some departments to transform including;
a. Hiring/candidate experience- In a world of social media and ‘entitled’ candidates, you can never go wrong with your candidate experience. Reviews and tweets will cost your company good candidates who will often check out what other people have said about you, before applying for your job. Millennials are demanding an improved candidate experience which has/will bring rise to mobile, video interviewing, simulations, and gamification in recruiting as in the case of Jobonics. Technology is also affecting the tools we use to hire as well as the jobs we will be hiring for.
b.Performance management, leadership, learning & devt- Out of the linear career progression curves, millennials are demanding more engagement with their managers. Learning is becoming anywhere, anytime, and performance appraisals do not involve the annual long boring forms. A like button will suffice!
c. Man vs Machine- How much of my work can be automated? Am I becoming obsolete? How soon will we see robots in the office? What jobs will be created by automation? And how can we prepare our people for those roles? HR has a key role to play in guiding the company in adopting emerging technologies and spearheading the change and concerns that will come with it.
2. Place
What does the future workplace look like?
a. Augmented workforce, distributed teams
Say goodbye to the actual office and say hello to virtual offices. Man working alongside the machine. A global workforce where anyone anywhere can be part of your team.
b. Wellness/employee experience
Yes to yoga, yogurt machines, laundry, wifi enabled buses, gym, and child care centers. No to HR who don’t care about staff wellbeing and work-life balance. Wellness is one of the biggest reasons a millennial will choose your company over the next, so you’d be wise not to ignore this one.
c. Diversity & Inclusion
With a diverse workforce, it’s no wonder that inclusion is now HR's #1 biggest issue. The remote workforce also brings with it unique challenges for managers in managing different viewpoints and types of workers and in essence expectations. D&I also necessitates the need for ‘blind’ hiring such as removing names of candidates to reduce the biases that humans come with, and platforms like Jobonics which are skills-based and focus on predicting a candidate’s job performance fairly and transparently. Our follow-up article dives more into this.
3. Platform/Technology
a. Digital HR/Smart self-service tools
All these changes are backed by technology. HR as a department has to adopt new technology including the HR Service Centres and self-service tools. Admin duties such as payroll, leave requests, benefits administration, etc are being automated completely so that HR focuses on its core duty-managing & building people. Learning is now global and incorporates many formats including augmented reality. Hello Bots & conversational interfaces that will induct you about the company. Hello video or VR that will show you a deeper view of the job or company. Hello, cloud computing and IoT that will help you work from home or a coffee shop and access HR data anytime. Hello, companies that are paying ‘virtual’ staff using Bitcoin. Hello, startups exploring blockchain in HR to decentralize applicant information such as education & experience credentials.
b. Analytics/feedback
Arguably one of the most challenging functions of HR, big data has become a force to reckon with and we can’t ignore it anymore. As new roles such as HRBPs spring up to position HR strategically in the organization, HR adopts a new face of a business partner, necessitating the adoption of analytics to back all their decisions and ideas. HR also needs data to measure its efforts including performance management, manpower planning, employee engagement, culture, succession planning, L& D & all the other core functions. But this will only come about once the other secondary duties have been automated so that the HR team can focus on decision-making better and not paper pushing.
As LinkedIn rightly said, “The next wave of recruiting lies in talent intelligence”. And this goes beyond hiring. HR has to adopt change if they want a seat on the Board. It’s not business as usual any longer. We have to work to promote a culture of agility, entrepreneurship, and learning. But for us to do that, we have to be able to let go of the past.
In Part 3 of this series, we look at the 4bs of the workplace of the future.
